Eastern Europe: "Schindler's List" museum

One of hundreds of visitors who came to see a new exhibition on the ordeal of Poles and Jews in Krakow under Nazi occupation between 1939-45 in Krakow, Poland, at the building of the former ceramics factory run by German businessman Oskar Schindler who rescued some 1,110 Jews by employing them there. Oscar-winning movie "Schindler's List" by Steven Spielberg tells his story.PAWEL ULATOWSKI, ASSOCIATED PRESS

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GETTING THERE: A roundtrip flight from LAX to Krakow, Poland, is about $980 on Lufthansa. Schindler's Factory is at 4 Lipowa St., Krakow. Admission is 17 PLN, which is roughly $5.40. It's free on Mondays. Open daily but hours vary by season.

The faces gaze out the windows of the factory owned by German businessman Oskar Schindler near the old Jewish quarter in Krakow, Poland.

Unlike a similar set of black-and-white portraits, which grimly line the barracks of the nearby Auschwitz concentration camp, these are survivors. Some are even smiling.

Almost two decades after Steven Spielberg filmed "Schindler's List" in the picturesque university town, the Schindler's Factory museum opened in 2010. Despite the feel-good photos of the former workers and the interesting shots of a bundled-up Spielberg directing in the city, the museum best succeeds at drawing visitors to absorb up close an atrocity that many are more comfortable experiencing from a distance.

The museum doesn't dwell on Schindler, who protected more than 1,100 Jews from the Nazis by employing them in dubious war industry projects. Instead, the exhibit is all about the community he helped save – a once-vibrant Jewish community facing extermination.

The permanent exhibition "Krakow Under Nazi Occupation 1939-1945" is housed in the factory's former administrative building, where Schindler also lived. Jews had been a part of Krakow life since arriving in the 13th century. In 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland, about 259,000 people lived in Krakow. A quarter – 68,482 – were Jewish.

The Jews were driven out, with at least 2,000 sent to the death camp in nearby Auschwitz. Today, local guides say several hundred Jews live in Krakow, a tiny fraction of what once as.

While rich with historical facts, the Schindler museum excels at creating an immersive experience of a subject that for many is mentally and emotionally unfathomable. How could so many have been murdered in the middle of the 20th century by one of the most modern and educated nations in the world?

After viewing gas masks and a full-size battle tank, we entered a room tiled in swastikas, with a red Nazi flag hanging unabashedly at the entrance. While it was sickening to view, I experienced a visceral sense of the saturation of the Nazi symbol in areas controlled by the regime. Schindler's Factory, which discusses the Germans' suppression of a free press, allows photography. When later visiting an underground bunker in Berlin, we were forbidden from taking pictures for fear of swastika images inciting hate. The symbol is rigorously controlled in Germany, with even museum exhibits limited on how many can be shown.

In one area of the Schindler exhibit, a soundtrack of barking dogs plays with such menace that I could imagine the dripping fangs of a German shepherd. In a room describing the quarry work camp located in the city, the floor transitioned from old city cobblestone to uneven pebbles that I could feel through my sandals. While looking at Jewish prayer shawls, a soaring song in Hebrew sounded to me like cries of mourning.

The museum examines indignities both large and small. I was struck by the photos that showed how early on, Jewish men were shorn of their side locks and beards by occupying soldiers.

The museum includes handwritten remembrances of Krakow by Holocaust survivors, including filmmaker Roman Polanski. Another interesting side note is the part of the exhibit dedicated to the late Pope John Paul II, who entered a clandestine Krakow seminary in 1942. He later became the first pope to visit a synagogue.

But not all is so intense. I was charmed by an exhibit of children's wooden dolls, which included an intricate Russian palace. Another corner showed a replica of a home with rustic bunk beds heaped with blankets. Wedding dresses and jewelry also were interesting to see.

Near the end of the exhibit, we passed through Schindler's office, where his typewriter sat on his desk along with a pad of paper. His employee roster, or Schindler's list, is also on display, along with a collection of the enamel pots and pans made at the factory.

The museum also focuses on the role of work – how Jews, living on a few hundred calories a day – were forced to labor without pay, often supplying the war effort that aimed to destroy them.

To enter the final room, I walked over a wobbling bridge that seemed to represent the uncertainty of life after the war. I was moved nearly to tears by an artistic rendering of regret. Large pillars printed with first-hand accounts of Krakow citizens rotated slowly in an array of languages.

A woman told of walking to share her ration of food with a starving friend, only to realize she had consumed it on the way. A maid for a Jewish family described holding their valuables for safekeeping but feeling too scared to visit them in the ghetto. A neighbor said she failed to rescue a toddler in the snow who had momentarily escaped the sight of the Nazis seizing his parents.

Unlike the experience of reading on a flat surface sign, the movement and the shape forced me to linger in their experiences. I felt so sad thinking about those individual fears and failings. I wondered what would have happened had they intervened.

While walking out I encountered those faces again of the factory employees and a plaque honoring Schindler. It refers to a saying from the Talmud, which is also quoted near the end of Spielberg's movie:

One of hundreds of visitors who came to see a new exhibition on the ordeal of Poles and Jews in Krakow under Nazi occupation between 1939-45 in Krakow, Poland, at the building of the former ceramics factory run by German businessman Oskar Schindler who rescued some 1,110 Jews by employing them there. Oscar-winning movie "Schindler's List" by Steven Spielberg tells his story. PAWEL ULATOWSKI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Liam Neeson, as Oskar Schindler, watches Ben Kingsley type a list of Jews to be saved from death camps in "Schindler's List" Schindler's real office in Krakow, Poland, is now a museum. File photo
The original building of the "Emalia" factory in Krakow, Poland, where Oskar Schindler shielded more than 1,000 Jews from the wartime Holocaust, is to be turned into a museum commemorating the German industrialist's life made famous in Stephen Spielberg's 1993 film 'Schindler's List ." STANISLAW MAKAREWICZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tourists at the Schindler Factory SCOTT HEAVEY, GETTY IMAGES
Liam Neeson portrayed Oskar Schindler in director Steven Spielberg's movie "Schindler's List." File photo
Jews would be sent to the Auschwitz death camp near Krakow unless Schindler could convince the Nazis he needed them as workers in his factories. ELLEN CREAGER, DETROIT FREE PRESS
The faces of those saved by Oskar Schindler are a counterpoint to the faces of the dead in nearby Auschwitz. COURTNEY PERKES, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Krakow, Poland ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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